Astro What
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You know better than that.Darn it, you're far too polite, AW!
The Trump thread
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This article explains the various ways that Trump got away with everything on his four criminal cases and how America's two tier justice system works when money, power and corruption come into the equation. It boils down to these things:
Anyone else would have been sunk by just one of them.
What really made the difference though, were his stupid fucking large base of MAGA voters who voted for him no matter what and Russia likely tampering with the election to just push it over the line, like I've documented a few posts up. At least they're gonna get screwed over like the rest of the population who had the sense not to vote for him.
Quite the annoying read.
www.msnbc.com
Anyone else would have been sunk by just one of them.
What really made the difference though, were his stupid fucking large base of MAGA voters who voted for him no matter what and Russia likely tampering with the election to just push it over the line, like I've documented a few posts up. At least they're gonna get screwed over like the rest of the population who had the sense not to vote for him.
Quite the annoying read.
Opinion | The incredible privilege of convicted felon Donald Trump
If Trump escaping punishment feels inconsistent, unfair or even unjust, then that’s because it is.
www.msnbc.com
Astro What
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That's not a new thing. I got into law enforcement back in the early 80s and it was present then. If you have money, you usually got away with something or got minimal punishment. For those without it they usually got slammed.
But that is not limited to the US. It applies in most other countries that have some type of democracy.
Trump has enabled white christian nationalists and given them lots of power. This is an incredibly Bad Thing as this analyst explains. So much for the separation of church and state. Where this is all going is frigging scary.
uk.yahoo.com
White Christian nationalists are poised to remake America in their image during Trump’s second term, author says
Donald Trump’s second term will empower the White Christian nationalist movement, says scholar Kristin Kobes Du Mez, author of “Jesus and John Wayne.” “It will transform our government,” she says. “They have seen their movement go mainstream, and now they have incredible access to power.”
The DoJ and FBI seriously dropped the ball by not charging Trump early on after the insurrection, eventually leading to him winning the election and getting away with everything. Of course, the Constitution's insurrection clause disqualified him and was self executing, but, again, corruption prevented the people in power from actually executing it and keeping this dangerous criminal off the ballot. This, above all, should have stopped him. Now, America and the world is in trouble because this didn't happen.
BTC and Glenn Kirschner explain this in detail.
BTC and Glenn Kirschner explain this in detail.
More evidence of how election voting machines can be hacked much more easily than you'd think. This issue really should get more traction than one YouTube channel that dares to speak about this and I do wonder why other similar channels don't discuss this. There should be a formal investigation into whether the machines were actually compromised and threw the election in Trump's favour, like we saw a few a few posts up from the same channel. But of course, with Trump at the very top of the tree, he can now corruptly suppress any investigation. What a clusterfuck.
Astro What
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There is no doubt they can be hacked. The issue is you have to have hands on the machine itself. The only time they are "networked" is when the are being updated, and now that's usually done by a USB device being plugged in and not over the internet. They aren't like a PC or a server that is hooked into a network (wired or wireless).
So for "hacking" there is a bigger issue than the device being hacked... a lack of secure storage of them that would allow someone uncontrolled access to them.
So, it's sensationalism about the wrong thing in reality. There is not a computer device on the planet that can't be "hacked". The controlling access to it is the primary point of concern.
Yes, they covered these exact points and explained how there's not enough robust security protocols and procedures in place to stop these things. They criticised the software too for not implementing good security. They also explained that to flip a state, bad actors only had to hack a few machines in key places. They didn't explicitly explain why, but it will be because the election really was quite close, so flipping a few machines would tend to go unnoticed. This is why it was critically important to have a big Democratic win where this nudging just over the line for Trump wouldn't have worked.
We now have a totally illegitimate, convicted criminal president in office who has lied and cheated his way to this "win". It really couldn't get much worse for the corruption of democracy and the future of America and the world.
We now have a totally illegitimate, convicted criminal president in office who has lied and cheated his way to this "win". It really couldn't get much worse for the corruption of democracy and the future of America and the world.
Astro What
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I think key coded doors monitored by cameras and alarm systems are more than adequate. What you can't protect against are those idiots that allow people that are not on the approved list to come in and "test" the equipment and copy images of them. Strangely enough, most of the ones that have been caught doing that are the very ones that are claiming how insecure they are.
Again, we get back to having to have access to those machines. THAT is a bigger issue than having software insecurities that can only be impacted by having hands on access. There are no secret hackers prowling into the systems over the internet.
I find it highly amusing that they would propose that an area that trends Democratic and that has Democrats in charge of that security are going to be letting Trump supporters come in and "hack" the systems for Trump votes. And there were plenty caught allowing access in 2020, of course after the vote was done.
Again, as long as access is controlled, holes in the software are not that big of a deal. It's not like they had people coming in and plugging in USB drives to overwrite the system or inject code. Even in my podunk county there were too many poll watchers in both 2020 and 2024 for that to be successful. In fact, the machines used locally had plate over the open port areas that were secured with star head button screws. and there were several of screws that would have to be removed (a suggestion that was made years ago to our county commissioners). So anyone doing that would have immediately attracted attention.
And that is due to a gullible electorate. They bought the lies that were fed to them - and are finding out now that those were lies that they were fed but apparently are too ingrained in the cult to question it. Although there are some of the more radical ones that are starting to question his supposed bonafides and promises. Laura Loomer ring a bell?
I find it rather amusing that back in 2020, these same people were not concerned about these points. But now that Trump won, it just HAD to be due to cheating. It couldn't be due to the Democrats starting out with a candidate that was too old and was of questionable mental capacity and then waiting until the last minute to withdraw and put a better candidate into place and not giving the voting public time to get to know her and not associate her as "just a younger Biden with different color skin and sex".
Right, I could reply point by point, but I'll summarise by saying that, yeah, that's sort of true, but when it comes to something as important as election security, it must be covered from all angles or people will find a way to get round it far too easily.
Still, I have a question and I want to preface that even though these videos are an elaboration of my suspicions of election interference, I still look at everything critically, even from people on my side of the fence, like these ones. So, my question is: for a clandestine operation as large as this and going on for some time, someone somewhere will blab, leak information about it in some way or another, perhaps quite unintentionally. However, I've not seen any evidence of this, no scandals blowing up, which then lends credibility that the election really wasn't rigged and despite the unlikely result of fine margins and a clean sweep, it really did happen that way.
It's a similar situation to the moon landing deniers. Around 400,000 people worked on that Apollo project, so for it to be fake, all of them would have to have perfect secrecy and no leaks by other means either, including accidental, which is just a little unlikely to say the least. The election is on a much smaller scale, but still pretty large for the same logic to apply. Hence, I maintain that it looks suspicious and should have been thoroughly investigated, but alas the Dems didn't have the balls to do that, so here we are, on the cusp inaugurating an illegitimate president.
The Dems certainly screwed up too. It was clear that Biden's faculties were fading and faster than Trump's so should never have run, but after that disastrous "debate", Biden should have swiftly exited stage left, not hung on for dear life. As it was, he gave Kamala a really tough sell, as you say. Still, she made a few critical mistakes too.
The massive shame of the whole situation for anyone with reasonable critical thinking skills was that it was a no-brainer to vote for someone who wasn't Trump, no matter who, even if Biden was in a coma, given what Trump is, but that's not what those mugs did. At least I take comfort in knowing that they're as screwed as we are.
It's embarrassing to see that Biden still thinks he could have beaten Trump. I'd love to do a what-if on that and see if he was right, but unfortunately that's not possible.
Still, I have a question and I want to preface that even though these videos are an elaboration of my suspicions of election interference, I still look at everything critically, even from people on my side of the fence, like these ones. So, my question is: for a clandestine operation as large as this and going on for some time, someone somewhere will blab, leak information about it in some way or another, perhaps quite unintentionally. However, I've not seen any evidence of this, no scandals blowing up, which then lends credibility that the election really wasn't rigged and despite the unlikely result of fine margins and a clean sweep, it really did happen that way.
It's a similar situation to the moon landing deniers. Around 400,000 people worked on that Apollo project, so for it to be fake, all of them would have to have perfect secrecy and no leaks by other means either, including accidental, which is just a little unlikely to say the least. The election is on a much smaller scale, but still pretty large for the same logic to apply. Hence, I maintain that it looks suspicious and should have been thoroughly investigated, but alas the Dems didn't have the balls to do that, so here we are, on the cusp inaugurating an illegitimate president.
Gullible is a gross understatement, damn. <shakes head>
The Dems certainly screwed up too. It was clear that Biden's faculties were fading and faster than Trump's so should never have run, but after that disastrous "debate", Biden should have swiftly exited stage left, not hung on for dear life. As it was, he gave Kamala a really tough sell, as you say. Still, she made a few critical mistakes too.
The massive shame of the whole situation for anyone with reasonable critical thinking skills was that it was a no-brainer to vote for someone who wasn't Trump, no matter who, even if Biden was in a coma, given what Trump is, but that's not what those mugs did. At least I take comfort in knowing that they're as screwed as we are.
It's embarrassing to see that Biden still thinks he could have beaten Trump. I'd love to do a what-if on that and see if he was right, but unfortunately that's not possible.
Astro What
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There is no "sorta" to it. For these machines, to make changes/hacks to them you HAVE to have physical access. The protocols that I have seen only allow them to be connected to the internet under controlled conditions, usually by one of the factory techs/representatives. They don't just get plugged into the internet willy-nilly and say "okay computer, go update yourself". They also are not wired into a network during voting periods nor have wireless enabled.
And, again I want to emphasize, if you have unauthorized people being granted access to those devices, you have a bigger problem than the fact that they might have a few issues in their coding.
By the same token, if you used paper ballots and did not secure them under lock & key and other forms of security what keeps someone from sneaking in and pushing extra ballots into the boxes? Not every state requires to you sign your ballot and give identifying data on it prior to submission.
Physical security is paramount.
So all forms of voting are subject to being "hacked" when you look at it realistically if the process is not physically secured.
I have yet to see one instance of anyone legitimately claiming to have hacked into one of the systems as it has been in use.
Never mind that roughly 98% of the voting done electronically is backed by paper ballots.
Election fact check: How voting machines work and why they're hard to hack
While election officials use technology for voter registration, tallying and in some cases vote-casting, the system is largely centered around paper ballots.
I guess we are supposed to believe that not only do they hack the machines, they have a group of Unseelie fae running around masked by magic changing those paper ballots to match the hack they did to the machines?
And that was my point about the 2020 election. I guess were supposed to believe that the Democrats were so accomplished that they hacked into the systems and got Biden voted into office. The question now becomes if they were so good and were already there, why weren't more Democrats voted into office in both 2020 and 2022 mid-terms? Are we really supposed to believe that they would go through all that hassle to just put one person into office that ultimately still has to rely on Congress to get their will done?
And to do it as massively as claimed there will ALWAYS be someone willing, for the right amount of money, to talk about it.
What these type of thing (the video you reference) basically amounts to is trying to make excuses for the failure of one party or the other to convince enough of the electorate to vote for them. I know several Democrats that just didn't vote because they were not that enthused about Harris nor Biden, and they felt that Harris was just going to be an extension of Biden.
In case you cannot tell... I am a major skeptic of the claims of voter fraud in 2020 and I remain so about the 2024 election. There will always be conspiracy theories about cheating and there have been for decades, even with paper only ballots.
Astro What, the points you make about how they'd have to get to those machines are pretty much what the video says and in general, any computer, no matter how secure, is vulnerable to someone with physical access to it, especially a someone with deep technical knowledge about it, so we're in agreement, really. 
And indeed, Trump / Russia / illuminati / insert your own favourite election meddler, couldn't have done it without a close overall margin, as I explained already, so the Dems could definitely have done a lot better, we agree there. I so wish Biden had been 20 years younger as he'd have wiped the floor with Trump. We saw how well he did four years ago, so it would have been like that and then some.
I feel for you and all the others who saw right through Trump and didn't vote for him, I really do, yet will have to now suffer the consequences, like Trump's supporters will have to, except that they deserve those consequences, of course.
And of course, everyone else on the rest of the planet will feel those consequences too, to a lesser extent. From my perspective, just the stress of having this odious shitbag in the news all the time and strutting around all triumphant and with all that power, having resoundingly beaten the weak and corruptible system that was supposed to bring him to justice, is one small aspect of the consequences of his "winning" this second term. This does cause me measurably more stress than it would have had he lost this election, or been disqualified like he should have been. I feel robbed.
This is why I maintain that we should have had that election interference investigation to at least rule out foul play. It's now far too late unfortunately, so it will just have to stay like this, as my suspicion, as it will now never happen.
EDIT
Just a few minutes after posting the above, I come across this article where it turns out that Trump said something very suspicious about those voting machines, as usual couched in the sort of infuriatingly vague language that tends to successfully prevent him from being held to account on and keeps everyone guessing.
Still think there's no evidence of foul play?
uk.news.yahoo.com
Replying to both paragraphs, yeah, there's always gonna be a leak somewhere. Perhaps there have been and we just haven't heard about them? No idea.
And indeed, Trump / Russia / illuminati / insert your own favourite election meddler, couldn't have done it without a close overall margin, as I explained already, so the Dems could definitely have done a lot better, we agree there. I so wish Biden had been 20 years younger as he'd have wiped the floor with Trump. We saw how well he did four years ago, so it would have been like that and then some.
I feel for you and all the others who saw right through Trump and didn't vote for him, I really do, yet will have to now suffer the consequences, like Trump's supporters will have to, except that they deserve those consequences, of course.
And of course, everyone else on the rest of the planet will feel those consequences too, to a lesser extent. From my perspective, just the stress of having this odious shitbag in the news all the time and strutting around all triumphant and with all that power, having resoundingly beaten the weak and corruptible system that was supposed to bring him to justice, is one small aspect of the consequences of his "winning" this second term. This does cause me measurably more stress than it would have had he lost this election, or been disqualified like he should have been. I feel robbed.
This is why I maintain that we should have had that election interference investigation to at least rule out foul play. It's now far too late unfortunately, so it will just have to stay like this, as my suspicion, as it will now never happen.
EDIT
Just a few minutes after posting the above, I come across this article where it turns out that Trump said something very suspicious about those voting machines, as usual couched in the sort of infuriatingly vague language that tends to successfully prevent him from being held to account on and keeps everyone guessing.
Still think there's no evidence of foul play?
Trump Makes Odd Remark About Elon Musk’s Familiarity With Pennsylvania Voting Machines
Donald Trump made a peculiar comment about Pennsylvania voting “computers” during an ode to Elon Musk at his pre-inauguration rally. During a loved-up nod to his “first buddy” before 20,000 fans at Sunday’s rally, Trump was taking swipes at Russia and China, and talking about the tech mogul...
So, who watched Trump's inauguration yesterday? I didn't watch the hyper extended coverage on CNN, heck all that fawning made me sick and so does Trump, so I stopped, but I did watch BTC's livestream coverage of the main event where he did his usual callouts against Trump and his cronies.
Here it is, all three hours of it, if anyone wants to see some of it for BTC's take on it.
Here it is, all three hours of it, if anyone wants to see some of it for BTC's take on it.
Here's Glenn Kirschner's take on Biden's very last act in office, mere hours before Trump took power, pardoning the innocent, and it's a real grey area with some downsides. Here's a summary from the video description.
omg no sooner do I make a post in this thread than I see another article worthy of posting here! I suppose it's because Trump has just been elected.
In this one, it explains the convoluted way that Trump could remain in power beyond his second term and don't put it past him to try this out, as it's a near certainty. The only thing that I can see stopping him from trying is either ill health, like dementia perhaps, or death.
Welcome to the end of American democracy, just like Biden warned us all this time.
uk.news.yahoo.com
In this one, it explains the convoluted way that Trump could remain in power beyond his second term and don't put it past him to try this out, as it's a near certainty. The only thing that I can see stopping him from trying is either ill health, like dementia perhaps, or death.
Welcome to the end of American democracy, just like Biden warned us all this time.
How Trump could try to stay in power after his second term ends
Though the 22nd Amendment prohibits Trump from being elected president again, it does not prohibit him from serving as president beyond Jan. 20, 2029. A scholar of politics and history explains.
I watched Asmongold watching his speech. CNN is trash,TBH.
Astro What
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Remember... we are talking Trump. Word Salad is his basic language.
Astro What
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Really? Pre-emptive pardons go back to the era of Abraham Lincoln.
In fact Trump used one himself for Bannon. I think I'd trust someone more that give them for the greater good than for those who help line their pockets.
I'm only going by what Glenn Kirschner has explained regarding the pros and cons of doing this. However, I think on balance Biden was right to do this.
It's a mistake to brush these things off. No, there's something behind it alright.
